SimplyMEPIS 6.0-rc3 Linux Release: More fixes and some package changes
Morgantown, WV, July 10, 2006 -- MEPIS has announced the rc3 release of SimplyMEPIS 6.0. RC3 contains more bugs fixes, several of which were contributed by the community. MEPIS is reviewing the licensing rights and obligations associated with the packages available in SimplyMEPIS. This has resulted in some changes and a delay in the shipment of 6.0.
The ISO image is available for download and test in the 'testing' subdirectory at the MEPIS Subscriber's Site and MEPIS public mirrors. For up to 7 days, please send feedback to
The display layout of the 'settings' kioslave has been tweaked in response to tester feedback. 'Setting' are system configuration utilities. It's hoped the new layout will be easier to navigate. The RT2400 and RT2500 wireless tools have been added to settings. Khotkeys now works with settings in KDE 3.5.3.
For better integration with KDE, MEPIS has been removing utilities from the MEPIS OS Center and rewriting them so they can be placed in appropriate categories in settings. The MEPIS Installer is now a separate application. To improve the functionality of the utilities and to be more compatible with future releases of KDE and MEPIS, new utilities are being built with QT 4.1.
At user requests, ocrad and gocr OCR software was added to the bootable CD. OpenOffice hyphenation and help were also added. Enigmail was added for Thunderbird. Thanks to the efforts of Carl and Ceti on the MEPIS translations team, translations of the grub help has been added for Dutch and Brazilian Portuguese.
Cups configuration was tweaked to eliminate some printer sharing problems that had been introduced by the upgrade to KDE 3.5.3. The Samba default configuration was tweaked and tested to work seamlessly in a mixed open network of MEPIS, XP, Win2k, and OSX machines.
Lame and liblame0 are being withheld from SimplyMEPIS 6.0. Warren Woodford explains, "We are in the process of making sure that 6.0 will be in compliance with the GPL and other licenses. It appears that the lame source code is originally licensed under the GPL and the LGPL. Lame incorporates algorithms that could to be subject to patent claims and licensing fees. It is my understanding that the GPLv2 license is incompatible with software that is subject to licensing fees and therefore it is not legal under the GPLv2 for us to download the source code or distribute binaries of lame."
Primarily due to the license audit, the SimplyMEPIS 6.0 bootable CD has been rescheduled for final release around July 18, 2006. The license audit is expected to be complete by the end of July.
About MEPIS
MEPIS LLC was founded in 2003 by computer industry veteran Warren Woodford, to realize his personal vision for a version of Linux that was complete and secure, while also being easy to try, easy to install, and easy to use. Today MEPIS offers commercial Linux solutions for home users, businesses, hardware vendors, and vertical market early adopters. MEPIS products are also available free of charge to not-for-profits, K-12 schools, and private users not requiring support.
